HistoryEarly color photograph of Ufa taken in 1910 by Sergey Prokudin-GorskyGovernment building in Ufa

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The city began as a fortress built on the orders of Ivan the Terrible in 1574, and originally bore the name of the hill it stood on, Tura-Tau. After the outbreak of the Pugachev''s Rebellion, it went through the most brutal events in its early history, the fortress and the city were in the middle of the military actions. For several months during the winter of 1773–1774, Ufa was under siege by Cossack and Bashkir insurgents until they were fought off by the arrived government forces.

Before becoming the seat of a separate Ufa Governorate in 1781, the city, along with the rest of the Bashkir lands, was under the jurisdiction of the Orenburg governors. And even though the 1796 reform reunited Orenburg and Ufa again, in 1802 the city of Ufa became a new center of the entire Orenburg Governorate that included large territories of modern-day Republic of Bashkortostan, Orenburg Oblast, and Chelyabinsk Oblast. During the 1800-1810s, Scottish Russian architect William Heste developed a general city plan for Ufa as a regional capital shaping the modern outline of its historical center.

The Belaya River Waterway (1870) and the Samara-Zlatoust Railroad (1890) connected the city to the European part of the Russian Empire and stimulated development of the city''s light industry. As a result, in 1913 the population of Ufa grew to 100,000.

On July 5, 1918, several months after the establishment of the Soviet power, Ufa was captured by the anti-Bolshevik forces supported by the Czechoslovak Legion. Ufa was chosen to host the September 1918 State Conference of the anti-Bolshevik forces from all across the former empire. After the end of the Conference on September 23, Ufa became the capital of the Provisional All-Russian Government headed by Nikolai Avksentiev, better known as the Ufa Directory.

On June 14, 1922, after the enlargement of the Bashkir ASSR, Ufa became its new capital. During the 1920-1930s, the city went through the rise of heavy industry. The discovery of oil in Bashkiria made Ufa one of the Soviet oil extracting and oil refining centers. Ufa Oil Refinery was opened in 1937. Population grew up to 500,000 inhabitants in the 1950s and to 1,000,000 in 1980.

During World War II, following eastward Soviet retreat in 1941, a number of industrial enterprises of the western parts of the Soviet Union were evacuated to Ufa. The city also became the wartime seat of the Soviet Ukrainian government.

Administrative and municipal status

Ufa is the capital of the republic and, within the framework of the administrative divisions, it also serves as the administrative center of Ufimsky District, even though it is not a part of it. As an administrative division, it is, together with twenty-four rural localities, incorporated separately as the city of republic significance of Ufa—an administrative unit with the status equal to that of the districts. As a municipal division, the city of republic significance of Ufa is incorporated as Ufa Urban Okrug.

Economy Industry

Many urban enterprises engaged in oil refining, chemistry, mechanical engineering reside in Ufa. Additionally, the economy of Ufa is composed of many fuel, energy and engineering complexes.

The value of goods, services, and manufacturing in Ufa totaled 185.0 billion rubles in 2009 ((DB regions of the Volga district))

Ufa is a donor of the republic''s and federal budgets. About 62.8% of tax revenues accumulated on the territory of Ufa City municipal district of Bashkortostan Republic are directed to the federal budget and 29% to the republic''s budget.

Transportation

Ufa is linked by railways to the rest of Russia, having a railway station on a historic branch of the Transsib. Ufa is the only city connected to Moscow by more than one federal highway. The M7 motorway links the city to Kazan and Moscow and the M5 motorway links Ufa to Moscow and to the Asian part of Russia.

The Ufa Metro is a planned and oft-delayed subway system, discussed since the late 1980s. On May 30, 1996, there was a ceremony marking the beginning of preparatory construction work, attended by then-President Boris Yeltsin.

Public transportation in Ufa includes trams (since 1937) and trolleybuses (since 1962) systems, as well as bus and marshrutka (routed cabs) lines.

NefAZ-5299 bus

Trolleybus

Tram

Demographics

As of the 2010 Census, the ethnic composition of the Capital of Republic of Bashkortostan was:

Urban Okrug Administration. The structure of the administration approved by the Council on the proposal of the Head of the Administration.

Head of the Administration manages the administration on the principles of unity of command. He is appointed under a contract entered into by the results of the competition. Term of office of the Head of the Administration limited to the period of office of the Council of the convocation.